Never say you’ve been to a foreign country if you’ve never tried any local food and drink there. Every country or region of Asia has its own must-try beverage. Today, we’re going to introduce the local drinks of Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Let’s take a look!

Don’t forget to have a cup of milk tea when you visit Taiwan. These years, tea shakes have been foreign tourists’ must-try during their trip to Taiwan! With a growing number of variations and surprisingly cheap prices, boba milk tea has become one of the essentials for KOLs to post on social media. In the early days, this beverage was only called “pearl milk tea”. Until 1988, a drink vendor in Tainan named Cao Meng (草蜢) changed the name to “boba milk tea”. Since then, it has been said that boba refers to bigger tapioca balls and pearl refers to smaller ones.

While Taiwan has boba milk tea as its national drink, Malaysia has its own one-of-a-kind milk tea called “teh tarik”. Teh tarik is popular in Malaysia and Singapore, believed to be brought by Indian migrant workers. Since there were no spices for workers to use, they decided to create a new type of tea with roasted tea dust. Adding some condensed milk, teh tarik we see nowadays was born. Teh tarik is also called “pulled tea” because the making process includes “pulling” the drink with two cups for a dense texture. Teh tarik can be your “food companion” for your daily life. You can drink it at breakfast, at midnight, or even before confessing to your crush!

The weather in Singapore is blazing for the whole year, so for every meal, Singaporean people must have something cold to quench their thirst. And imperatae cane drink is the most common drink among all cold beverages. Water chestnut, the main ingredient of the drink, is rich in various vitamins. The unique sweet flavor of the drink resembles that of mesona herbal tea and Luo Han Guo. Besides drinking it, you may also boil it with apples and other ingredients to enrich the flavor!

When it comes to China, the historical drama scene in which two consorts fight against each other…….I mean, the scene in which people have a wonderful time with tea occurs in people’s minds.

Here I’d like to introduce the art of tea that represents the long history of Chinese culture: Teochew kung fu tea. “Kungfu” in this case refers to the art of tea preparation and tea tasting. Originating from the Song Dynasty, Teochew kung fu tea is popular in the Teochew region in Guangdong Province, Zhangzhou, and Quanzhou in Fujian Province. With inheritance and development since the Tang and Song Dynasty, Kungfu Tea has been confirmed as an intangible cultural heritage. If you travel to China, don’t ever miss this cultural heritage.

As British people introduced afternoon tea to Hong Kong during the colonial era, citizens in Hong Kong localized British milk tea to make it blend into their daily life. Generally, Hong Kong-style milk tea uses 3 or more black tea leaves when boiling. Hongkongers would use white silk bags to filter the boiled tea dust and also to increase the smoothness of black tea. With evaporated milk and sugar, a cup of Hong Kong-style milk tea is done! After multiple times of filtering, the white silk bag would be dyed brownish red; thus, Hong Kong-style milk tea has an alternative name: silk stocking milk tea (honestly, I thought Hongkongers used real stockings for tea preparation).

A cup of authentic Thai iced tea is made of dark roast black tea. The preparation involves spices such as star anise and tamarind. When it’s about to be served, the black tea would be added with sugar or condensed milk and then a fair amount of crushed ice. You might wonder why Thai iced tea has a carrot-like orange color. It is said that the soil in Thailand is rich in Iron Oxide, caused by the everlasting rainy seasons, so the cultivated tea leaves have a darker color. It is also said that a scholar confirmed that iced tea contains a type of food coloring substance named Sunset Yellow FCF, and the coloring is what makes the drink orangish-red.

From the beverages introduced above, you can see that tea is truly popular in Asia! And as the culture and the preparation process differs, the tea would look or taste completely different! If you travel abroad in Asia for pleasure, don’t forget to explore the must-try local drinks!